


no rest for the wicked

by Unused_dishes



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Eye Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27396787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unused_dishes/pseuds/Unused_dishes
Summary: After loosing everything, Jon is killed by Jonah. And immediately wakes up the day before the eyepocalypse, unharmed, and with one more chance to get it right.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 14
Kudos: 65





	1. Undead

The thing about dying at the hands of Jonah Magnus, is that given free reign of a world without consequences, he really liked to drag things out.

Jon was pinned to the ground, Jonah's weight crushing the air from his lungs.

“We really could have been great, Jon,”

An image seared itself in Jons brain, Martin and Tim and Sasha, Sasha from before, all standing beside him at the top of the Panopticon, smiling, laughing. Cut off by another vicious stab with the knife, burying it deep in his stomach.

“If you’d just played along,”

He twisted it.

“You could have ruled beside me,”

The knife pulled free and came down again in his shoulder. Black dragged at him, but the eye forced him to witness this, his own painful destruction.

“I suppose it's just too bad,” He leaned back, dragging the knife with him. Jon moaned in pain, but still the eye wouldn’t let him die.

“This could have all been avoided, you know, if you’d just joined me at first,”

He leaned in again, elbows on Jons chest, digging into the stab wounds. 

Agony.

“We could have made a deal for your friends' lives. They didn’t have to die so...pointlessly,”

Another image, Martin lying on the other side of the Panopticon, blood dripping down his face. His breathing fast, shallow, pained grunts coming out of his mouth every time he breathed in. And suddenly he wasn't anymore, as if he had never been there, as though a place so dependent on its residents not dying had tried to paint over one of the few who had managed it.

“F- fuck you,” Jon spat, pain coursing through his limbs on every breathy letter.

“Now Jon,” Jonah scolded, and he sat up a bit, only to drive the knife in again, further up.

Jon howled.

“You know Jon, there's only one sure-fire way to kill those like us,” He took the tip of the knife, dragging it up, up, till it rested just below Jons eye. “You know what it is, too, don’t you?”

And Jon Knew. He Knew that when Jonah finally took the knife to his eye he could join all those he failed to protect. Basira, Daisy, Melanie, Georgie. Tim. Martin. He Knew it was the only way to be free. He Knew it would hurt.

But still, Jon Watched as Jonah pulled his arm back in a slow, grandiose gesture. He watched the blade swing straight for his eye, felt the metal pierce it and destroy his sight. And as painful, agonising as it was, he could not look away, not even as Jonah drew it out and went for his other eye. 

Jon couldn’t look away until his sight was truly destroyed, his connection to the Eye shattered, and the world faded out in a sweet wave of nothing.

-

“What the actual hell,”

Jon jolted awake at the furious voice.. The room he was in was bright, hurting his eyes.

His eyes?

Hadn’t- hadn’t Jonah-?

“Jonathan Sims you’d better get up right the hell now, or I will kill you,”

He opened his eyes, shielding them against the harsh lighting, and slowly sat up. The first thing he realised was that he was in his office in the archives. It was… surprisingly intact, looking much the same as it had an eternity ago, when he and Martin left London. 

The second was that he had been lying on the floor, and his back was absolutely killing him. 

And the third, arguably most important thing, was that he was staring up at Basira Hussain, looking as alive and angry as when he’d last seen her. Maybe even angrier. 

He brought his arm up to his chest expecting gore, but his shirt was fine, his flesh and skin intact. His face must have betrayed his confusion, because Basira sighed and started walking towards him, slumping into the chair near his feet.

“Basira?” 

“Yes, Jon?” 

He winced at her tone. “I don’t- I- where-”

“The archives. Why are you here?”

“I- uh- I didn’t try to be,”

“What the hell, Sims,”

Jon just stared at her from the floor. Clearly this wasn’t some sort of benevolent afterlife. He felt a heavy sense of need overwhelming him, the Eye beginning for a statement in a way it hadn't since before the apocalypse. When Jon reached out, trying to Know what had happened, he was met once again with a door, little bits of information slipping out, though nothing like it had been before. Or maybe… 

“Basira, what's the date?”

She blinked at him. “October… 30th. I think. Why is this what-” She saw the look on his face, and her expression immediately went back to resigned anger. “Jonathan Sims, tell me right now what you’re thinking or I swear-”

“Alright!” Jon held up both hands in surrender. “I- er, I think I came back in time? Or- no, more like, reset time,”

For a moment, Basira looked like she was finally going to break. But she deflated, burying her head in her hands and letting out the longest suffering sigh Jon had ever heard.

“Jon,”

“Er- yes?”

“I need. A few. Details,”

“Oh. I- god, what can I say?” He took a moment to ponder what he could even reasonably tell her. Without her murdering him on the spot. “I- er, I just died,”

Basira just stared at him.

“I think at least, although I am here, which would suggest that I didn’t,”

“Right,”

“I know it doesn't make sense but I- well, it makes more sense than anything else right now?”

Her expression didn’t change, but she put out a hand to help him off the floor. 

Gripping her hand, Jon eased himself up slowly, trying to keep weight off his left leg and looking around the room to see if maybe, by some miracle, he had his cane with him. 

No such luck, but sitting in a desk chair was better than the floor.

It took a moment of thinking before any kind of clarity came to the situation. Time travel. Who’d have thought. 

“Jon,”

He looked up at her, still sitting across from him. “Right, right, explanations,”

“I- actually Basira, I don’t believe this is a conversation to have outside the tunnels,”

“Well, Jon, let's go down there right now then,” 

Jon nodded in agreement, but paused halfway to standing up. Martin was worried. He Knew that, and god, wasn’t the thought of hearing that man's voice just about heaven. It couldn't wait for this inevitably long conversation. “Basira, wait. I have to call Martin,”

“It can’t wait?”

“No, it can’t,”

Basira sighed, but sat back down to wait as Jon dialled the number on the old fashioned landline on his desk.

“Hello?” Martin's voice came through.

“Martin,”

“Jon? Where are you? I woke up and you were gone, and when you weren’t back by lunch… I’ve been looking all day, I can’t believe-”

“Martin,”

Martin stopped talking long enough to take a deep, calming breath. “Jon. What's going on?”

And how could he explain? That he was in London, long months, maybe a year, after it was decimated. And that he’d just watched him die. And that he should be dead. 

“Jon?”

“Martin, I- I’m in London. I don't really know how,”

“What? How are you- no, you-” He took another staticky breath. “Jon, can you- can you explain what's going on at all?”

“Not over the phone… but Martin, I need you to come back here,”

“Jon, what is happening? Are you hurt? Are you- are you safe, right now?,”

“Yes, yes, but it doesn’t matter, you need to get back here. I- I think somethings going very, very wrong very soon and- and I need you here,”

“Is this… Entity…. weirdness?”

“Ah, I- I think it must be?”

There was a pause on the other side.

“Alright, alright, I can get back by… tomorrow, if I leave now. Jon, are you at least safe? Can you- can you at least tell me that? Are you with Basira?”

“Yes, I am. And I’m as safe as I can be. I don’t… seem to be hurt, or in imminent danger,”

“Ok. Ok, I- I’ll see you soon then?”

“Yes,”

“Ok,”

“Martin,”

“Yes Jon,”

“I love you,”

A pause. “I love you too,”

And he hung up.


	2. Reborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretty big trigger warnings for eye trauma and a little bit of suicidal ideation, please be careful!

The tunnels were chilly and damp, and dark in that way that she’d forgotten they could be. The way down was slow without Jons cane, and He sat heavily against the wall only a meter or so down the tunnel. 

“So you- what, time traveled from the future?”

“Yes. Although, as I said earlier, I believe It might be closer to… closer to resetting time? And yes, it makes a difference,”

Basira rolled her eyes, though she doubted he could see it in the dim light. “Jon, you have a lot of explaining to do,”

So he told her. Down there, Jon’s story wasn’t hard to believe. How Elias had tricked him into unleashing the Fears on the world, becoming ruler in the process. It made sense. He was that kind of narcissist.

She shivered harder as he explained the lengths to which they’d gone to stop him. How, in the end, it had never been enough. Barely ever even been a start. If Elias’ plan succeeded, then she, and everyone she had ever loved or met or heard of or hated, even, would be trapped. She would die. Daisy would die. Poor Melanie, who was supposed to have gotten out and been free, would get dragged back in. 

Fear pooled in her gut, hardening into a grim certainty. She had to stop him. She had to. Jon clearly couldn’t on his own. As much as he was the cause, it seemed he was also a victim, and now that he had the end of the world in him, he’d never be free of it.

“Jon, you can't resist the Eye much anymore. Can you?” Not so much a question as a statement, but he nodded anyways. “And if Elias were to make you so much as glance at the incantation, you would read it,”

He looked at her like he already knew where this was going. “Yes, I don’t believe I would be able to avoid it,”

“If you're right, I think I have to kill you,”

“I- I think you do,”

That surprised her. Jon had, even at his worst, never wanted to die. He was a coward, and an asshole, and self destructive to an extreme. But he always wanted to survive. He always did what he had to to get another day. And the fact that he wasn’t arguing…

“I- I can’t be killed in any conventional ways, I don’t think,”

“Your eyes,”

He nodded.

“Would it actually kill you? Melanie was alright, and if you're separated from the Eye, you're not much of a threat anymore,”

“I don’t know, I’m sorry. But- it sort of worked last time,” He swallowed. “I have… a much stronger connection to the eye than she did. I don’t remember the last time I ate a meal, or slept through the night, or even drank some water. I- I don’t know if anything else is even keeping me alive,”

“Right,”

“Yeah,”

Basira sighed, and sat down against the wall. The stone sunk cold straight through her thin sweater, but it was oddly grounding. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then looked up at Jon, still standing awkwardly in front of her.

“It should be tonight, before you-know-who has a chance to realize you're not in Scotland, and change his plan,”

“I- yes,” He paused for a moment, considering something. “Is there any way we could wait for tomorrow?”

“You want to see Martin,”

“Yes,” He sighed. “The last image of him I have is of his dead body, I don’t- I don’t want to remember him as that in my last moments,”

“We don’t know for sure if you're going to die,”

Jon didn’t respond.

“I don’t want to kill you, you know. If we can just separate you from the Eye, well, that's the outcome I want,”

A draft of air floated down the tunnel, somehow even cooler than the already freezing air. 

“I- I want that too,”

“Tonight, Jon,”

“Alright, tonight,”

\---

Jon spent an hour looking at pictures on Basira’s phone. Scrolling social media, obsessively memorising faces. He spent almost ten minutes looking at one picture of the original archive staff, years ago, before… well, before everything. After a moment, Basira realized he was crying. She left to double check the archives were clear. 

“Let's get this over with,” Jon said after only a bit too long. “Please,”

So Basira had him lay down on the cot in his office. She wiped her knife off with alcohol, dried it, and sat beside him. 

“Can you restrain yourself, or will the Eye take over to stop me?”

Jon seemed to ponder that for a moment “I think you’d best tie my hands, just incase,”

She used an old scarf of Daisy’s that had been left behind, carefully but surely securing his arms to the headboard. When he was mostly immobilized, she leaned over him, bringing the knife in front of his face.

“I am sorry Jon. I don’t like you, but I- I don’t want to hurt you,”

“Not yet,”

She sighed. “If this works, maybe we can skip that all together,”

He smiled. 

The first touch of the knife to his eye had Jon seizing up, and by the time it was well and buried in him, he was screaming, thrashing so hard that she worried about killing him by accident. Climbing up to sit on his legs, she drew the knife cleanly out and went for the other eye. 

“Basira, Basira please- please, I- I can hold back- I won’t do it- I promise, please just stop-”

It was hard to focus. “I- I have to do this,”

He redoubled his efforts as she brought the knife down once again. But as soon as it hit, he went dead still. The air felt, in some inexplicable, uncanny way, empty.

Basira climbed off him, sitting down heavily in the chair beside the cot. Blood stained her hands and arms.The smell of it choked the room. 

She hadn’t expected to feel… so much. It was necessary. It stopped the apocalypse. No matter what, the pros outweigh the cons. And he was probably still alive. He had to be, because he was harder to kill than that. 

She leant forward, sticking a hand under his nose. And felt, ever so faintly, the tickle of his breath on her fingers. She let her hand drop again and let out a sigh of relief.

Then she wondered why. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done… as if she had a totally clear conscience, and well. If he had died to save the world, so what? Really, he wasn’t even a nice person, no one she could see herself being friendly with in the future. And it wasn’t like there would be consequences if he had died. The police wouldn’t want to be involved as soon as they realized it was yet again the Magnus Institute, and the paramedics would avoid almost any question that wasn’t life or death. So there wasn’t really any consequences to face, except-

“Shit Jon, Martin’s going to kill us,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to get this next chapter up pretty quickly, sorry its taking so long!


	3. Deja Vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin arrives in London

All in all, Martin had had worse days. He left the safe house almost immediately, made it to Edinburgh by dinner, and left on the first train that morning. The train wasn’t busy, and the countryside was fresh and beautiful. But the anxiety he felt for Jon overshadowed it all. 

Waking up alone wasn’t all that uncommon; often Jon woke up early, or needed time alone after a nightmare. He was happy to respect that. It was rare, but not alarming, for him to be out of the safehouse, probably walking along the road trying to ground himself in the cool air. But when he hadn’t returned, Martin had started to worry. Then when he called, all the way from London, sounding all together hysterical, well. That had set a pit of anxiety in Martin’s stomach like no other. 

It was more creepy entity problems. They really couldn't catch a break, could they? But until he hit London, there wasn’t much he could do. 

He spent most of the train ride in silence, glued to his phone, waiting for a call or text, or even an email with information about what had happened. But nothing came until about an hour outside London.

A single line text from Basira: 

Don’t panic, come to the hospital

No text had ever sent Martin into more of a panic. His fingers shook as he typed out a reply.

What happened? You’re with Jon?

It took an agonizing five minutes for her to reply. 

Yes, he’s gonna be fine

Which again, was not reassuring.

Basira, can u pls explain more?

Basira

Pls 

She was either ignoring him, or had turned her phone off. Or both. 

The rest of the ride was painful, nerves buzzing under his skin, making him feel lightheaded and numb. Basira wasn’t one to lie or mince words. If she said Jon was going to be ok, he would be. Right? 

By the time he stood outside of the hospital, Martin was shaking with anxiety. He texted Basira to see where she wanted to meet, but as he got closer to the doors he realised she was standing outside waiting for him.

“Martin,” she greeted.

“Basira,” he replied, trying for the same unfazed tone, but only coming out strained and tense.

“He’s ok,”

“You understand why I’m struggling to believe that?”

She sighed.

“What happened, Basira,”

“I’ll tell you in his room, it's chilly, and I don’t want anyone… hearing things,”

\---

Jon was in a bed near the window, crowded by a concerning number of monitors and tubes and wires. He was still asleep. His head was bandaged all around his eyes.

“No,”

“I’m… sorry, Martin,”

“Why- who- what happened?”

She looked out the window, face set in a firm expression that screamed don’t ask me more or I might break you.

Martin fell gracelessly into a chair beside Jon’s bed, delicately picking up a bandaged hand. “What happened here?”

“Once he was... separated, he was human. All the stuff that happened caught up with him,”

“Oh, god,” 

“Yeah, it was… bad,”

“You told me not to worry,” He accused.

“I was right, he’s stable, and he’ll recover. Mostly,”

Martin rolled his eyes, tracing lines over the only part of Jons arm not covered in bandages. Basira sat down in a chair near the end of his bed, a few feet from Martin. She looked tired, worn down and ready to drop.

“Tell me what the- what the damage is,”

She sighed, sitting up a bit. “The eyes, of course. Severe dehydration, and hunger. He hadn’t eaten in a week at least. The cuts started appearing as we left in the ambulance, all the little things that the eye healed for him. Papercuts aren’t bad, until its years worth of them all at once,”

Martin let a hollow laugh escape his mouth. “Guess he never was good at taking care of himself, was he?”

“No, no he wasn’t,” 

A few moments passed in tense silence.

“Why was he even here?”

Basira sighed, looking, if possible, more weary than she had moments before. “It was Elias,”

“Of course,”

“You should ask Jon to tell you, you’ll believe it from him,”

“That crazy?”

“You have no idea,”

They sat in silence for a moment. 

“Basira,”

“Yes?”

“Were you the one to…” he gestured vaguely at Jon’s face. 

“...Yes,”

“And he-”

“He asked me too,” She cut him off. “He was… too close to the Eye, and things were about to go badly,”

What could he say to that? Anger bubbled under his skin, but there was nowhere to direct it. Basira only did what she had to. Jon only did what he thought was right.

“How safe is it for us to be here?”

“Not,” Basira stood and walked to the window, shoes loud in the silent room. “The police I’ve managed to get away from the archives, nothing much for them to do. But they were never really the biggest threat,”

“No, don’t suppose they were. Daisy’s still…”

“Yes,” Basira replied curtly.

“Sorry Basira, if I could help-”

“You can’t,” She turned away from him, toward the hall. “If you’re here now, I’ll be going. I’m very busy,”

And she walked stiffly out of the ward.

Martin sighed, but really she was being more considerate than he’d thought she might be. Clearly she’d stayed the night, and there was comfort in knowing Jon hadn’t been alone, even if he wouldn’t have been able to tell. 

There was nothing left to do but sit and wait for Jon to start to wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im so sorry this took so long! I've just been super busy with school unfortunately. Hopefully from here on the speed I write should improcve a lot lol  
> Thank you so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I don't know how many chapters this'll have yet, but the next one should be up... when I get to it I guess. Comments will make me write faster though!


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